Letters from No One
by BonesBBLover
Summary: Casey was killed in the line of duty, leaving Chuck to grieve. Then one day a mysterious letter shows up with a stamp post marked in Poughkeepsie, and no return address. Yes, Casey is OOC, he's dead so I took some liberties. Chuck/Casey slash.
1. Letter from No One

_Chuck,_

_Don't grieve over me. I know you are, and I know me telling you not to isn't enough to stop you. But you need to know that when you're upset and blaming yourself for what happened, you're putting yourself at risk. _

_I know you're not sleeping well, if at all, and you're not eating regularly. You're making yourself sick with guilt and grief, but Chuck, you can't do that. You need to be alert and aware, not exhausted and distracted. Fulcrum is still after you, and right now you're an easy target. If not for yourself and your own safety, do it for me._

_I need you to understand that I didn't die a martyr or a hero. I died protecting you, firstly because you were my charge and it was my responsibility to keep you alive. Secondly, and more importantly, because even though I couldn't tell you when I was alive, I loved you. I made a promise to myself to protect you at all costs, and if my life was the cost, I would have gladly given it._

_I know you never understood how I could choose the life I lived, the life of an undercover agent who wasn't even allowed to tell his lover his real name, but I need you to know why. I saw a lot of things when I was a kid. A lot of bad things. My dad was in the military and we moved around a lot, sometimes living in war zones and third world countries. I saw men die, fighting for what they believed in, no matter how wrong it seemed in my head. I saw men kill women and children just because they felt like it. And I swore to myself that I wouldn't let that happen again. I made a promise to fight for the greater good, to protect those innocent civilians who were hurt by the evil that exists in men._

_The problem was, even though I fought against the darkness, it took hold of me. I took pleasure in intimidating, in controlling, in killing. In all of the things I despised and had sworn to oppose. I grew comfortable with them, carrying out the actions for the purpose of the government. I followed my orders and I turned into those men I had watched kill little girls who were standing barefoot in the snow, shivering because they couldn't feel anything but the cold. That's what I had become, until I met you._

_There was something about you that made me see what I had turned into. That made me want to be ME again. I wanted to be better. I wanted to protect you and love you, and in the end, I couldn't even do that. I refused to follow my orders, for once choosing what I believed was right, and in doing so, I failed you. I'm sorry, Chuck._

_You always asked me to tell you something true, something real. And every time you looked at me and asked, I broke a little more because I didn't know what was real and what my cover was any more. I lived so long as John Casey that I couldn't remember what my parents named me. I couldn't remember my parents' phone number, or what my brother looked like._

_You saw me as Major John Casey, NSA agent sent to protect you. As John Casey, your coworker at the Buy More. As John Casey your neighbor, your friend. As John Casey, your lover. But in reality, I was no one. I didn't have an identity during my years in the NSA, and my death went unmarked and unnoticed but for you and my superiors. I didn't exist, and you can't grieve for something that was never there._

_Chuck, I need you to move forward and protect yourself now. You learned enough from me that I know you'll survive. You know how to keep your mouth shut during an interrogation and you know how to fight back, and that will let you survive nearly anything. You need to be strong. I know you can get through this. Let Ellie and Morgan love you, they can help you._

_And if you find that you need more answers than I was able to give you, take some time off from the Buy More and go to Seattle. Look up Evelyn Linderman, and tell her who you are. She can tell you much more than I can remember._

_Be safe, Chuck. I'm watching and waiting for you._

_John_


	2. The Morning Shift

"_Hurry up," Casey hissed in his ear, the hand in the small of his back urging him forward._

"_What's going on, Casey?" Chuck asked, a slight note of panic in his voice. Crouching low, Chuck just barely missed hitting his head on a wooden beam. "Who's following us?" _

"_Later," the large NSA agent growled, shoving Chuck into an impossibly small corner and covering the shivering body with his own. "Be quiet."_

_There was something in the agent's voice that Chuck had never heard before. With his face buried against Casey's chest, Chuck worked to steady his ragged breathing and identify what was out of place in Casey's voice._

_Less than a minute later, the sounds of two heavy sets of footsteps came thundering from the corridor they had just left. Casey held his breath while the footsteps passed by their hiding spot, startling Chuck, who had never once seen Casey do that._

_Fear, Chuck thought to himself. That's what was different in his voice, he actually sounded afraid! _

_With that realization, Chuck took a sharp intake of air, wondering what was so different this time as they tried escape from people who wanted to kill or kidnap him._

"_Time to move," Casey whispered so softly that Chuck almost missed it. He took Chuck's small wrist in one of his meaty paws, pulling and pushing him along the corridor, trying to keep Chuck's thin frame covered by his much larger bulk._

_Chuck was shaking as Casey manhandled him out of the building, worrying about why the agent was even more jumpy than usual. His eyes never stopped roaming, in front of them, to the sides, behind them, even towards the ceiling._

"_Casey!" a man called from behind them. _

_The agent ignored the voice, pushing Chuck faster through the hall, nearly at a run. "Faster!" Casey growled, no longer trying to be quiet. It was obvious now they were just trying to get away from whoever the men were._

"_NSA! Stop!!" the other man tried, the pair breaking into a run to follow them. "We have orders to kill!"_

_They were nearly free when the first shots rang out. The door was less than twenty feet ahead of them, across the empty storage room of the warehouse. Casey had Chuck in front of him, pushing him towards the dim light of the outside._

_Two shots rang out from somewhere behind them, one narrowly missing Chuck's left ear. Behind him, Casey lurched slightly, letting go of his death grip on Chuck's wrist. Then he stopped altogether._

_Chuck came to an abrupt halt, turning around, horrified to see a red stain spreading rapidly from the agent's shoulder. "John!" he cried, running back to the agent. He needed to get them out of there!_

"_Chuck, just go. Run," Casey told him between clenched teeth, one hand over the wound and the other pulling his gun from its holster. "Go!"_

_Chuck looked from his hand, which was now covered in red from where he'd touched Casey's shoulder, to Casey's face, shocked. His orders were enough to snap him out of it, though, and he reluctantly left Casey's side, running for the door._

_Three more shots rang out in the warehouse, and then all was silent. Chuck collapsed against the side of the warehouse, out of sight if the two men came outside to look for him. They didn't._

_He waited a reasonable amount of time, he told himself, before carefully creeping back to the door he'd run out of. Looking carefully inside, the first thing Chuck noticed was Casey on the ground. Then further passed him were the bodies of the two men._

_With the coast clear, Chuck rushed back to Casey's side, hands shaking while he tried to check for a pulse. His skin was already cooling to the touch, the pool of blood growing with each passing minute._

"_John," Chuck begged, tears building up in his wide brown eyes. "John, come on! We have to get out of here." He shook the agent by the shoulders, trying to get a reaction out of the man, to have him glare up at Chuck with a scowl on his face and growling about dumb computer nerds waking him up._

"_Come back," Chuck's strangled cry echoed in the empty building, no one left to hear it except three lifeless bodies._

***

Chuck sat bolt upright in his bed, his heart racing from the vividness of the dream. Lowering his head into his shaking and clammy hands, he brushed away sweaty locks of hair from his forehead, trying to will himself to calm down.

It had been over a month since Casey had been killed, but the memory still hadn't faded. It remained as clear as if he was seeing it happen again, like he did every night in his dreams. For the first few weeks, he tried not to sleep so he didn't have to see it replay in an endless loop of pain. But he would eventually pass out from sheer exhaustion, and it would be there, waiting for him to drift into the land of Nod.

He'd tried everything he could to have a dreamless sleep, going so far as to ask his sister for sleeping pills. They didn't help, but rather made it worse, trapping him in an eight hour cycle of painful memories.

Rubbing the moisture from his eyes, Chuck looked at the alarm clock, a bleary 4:00 showing on the blue display. Late enough he could get up and go into work.

Dragging himself into the bathroom, he took a short, cold shower to wash away the memory of the night. Within the hour he was dressed and on his way to the Buy More.

He didn't usually work the early morning shift because the store wasn't open, and there wasn't generally too much for him to do, but he'd been coming in early for the last month. Big Mike had finally changed his schedule, assigning him to be the supervising manager while the stockers received the freight and did their early morning stocking and preparing for the day.

He still arrived almost a half-hour earlier than the stockers, but at least he had a reason to be there. While he waited, he worked on one of the computers that Jeff and Lester hadn't gotten to the day before, finishing it just as the first employee arrived.

It helped him to be doing something, but just being at the Buy More, especially when the stockers came in wearing their hideous green polo shirts, made him feel like someone was stabbing him in the heart and twisting the knife.

"Morning, Chuck," one of the stockers greeted him sleepily, the kid still rubbing his puffy red eyes.

"Morning," Chuck replied, his voice cold and apathetic.

He waited for the other two employees to arrive, neither of them saying anything, but rather acknowledging him with a nod. He preferred the silent ones these days. It made it less obvious that he wasn't talking as much or as animatedly as he used to.

Chuck settled in to his morning routine, looking forward to the four hours of blissful, mindless inventory and stocking.

***

"Bartowski!" the newest Buy More employee barked at him hours later. "We need to talk."

"What do you want, Davidson?" Chuck asked exasperatedly, rolling his eyes at the large, angry NSA agent.

"Home theater room. Now," he snarled, walking off in the direction of the room, expecting Chuck to follow.

"Uh huh," Chuck muttered under his breath, turning and walking in the other direction.

The NSA had sent a replacement handler within a day of Casey's death, and unfortunately it seemed like their agents were required to be large, gruff, and angry. Chuck wondered if they had to take a class in being coarse and intimidating, smiling momentarily as he thought about asking Casey that exact question. The moment faded as quickly as it had begun, causing the smile on his face to drop into a grimace. Even after a month, he still forgot sometimes.

Agent James Davidson fit perfectly into the NSA agent mold, which only served to make Chuck's mood worse. Davidson reminded him too much of Casey sometimes, but in all the wrong ways. Whereas Casey's attitude had mostly been a front, Davidson really was an asshole. And unlike Casey, Davidson had no qualms about hitting Chuck around a little.

As a result, Chuck tried to avoid the agent as much as possible, choosing to seclude himself from anything and everyone that might trigger a flash. The less government spy stuff he had to do, the less time he had to spend in the presence of the agent.

Chuck made his way back to the break room, collapsing in a seat at the table and waiting for the inevitable explosion. He dropped his head forward onto the table with his eyes closed, trying to will the thoughts about Casey away.

"Three… two… one…" he counted softly, stopping as the door flew open and crashed into the wall behind it.

Morgan came barreling into the room, skidding to a stop to shut the door behind him and lock it. Panting, Morgan looked at Chuck, his eyes bright in fear. "He's crazy! He's ready to kill me so he can get in here to kill you!"

"Sorry, Morgan," Chuck replied softly, his dull brown eyes looking up at his friend.

"You gotta talk to him, man. Do something to get him to leave me alone!" Morgan pleaded, dropping into the chair opposite Chuck.

"I'll try, but I can't promise anything," he assured Morgan, his voice lacking true conviction or caring.

"I never thought I'd miss the days Casey was here," Morgan bemoaned, closing his eyes and rubbing them with the base of his palm. "Never in a million years."

Chuck couldn't bring himself to reply, staring instead at the California State Minimum Wage chart that was extremely fascinating, all of the sudden.

"I wonder why Casey up and left all of the sudden, like that," Morgan continued talking as if Chuck was interested. "He didn't even give his notice."

To keep his eyes from filling with tears, Chuck bit the inside of his lip hard enough to draw blood. He couldn't tell Morgan the truth. Any of the truth.

"Chuck?" Morgan questioned, waving his hand in front of Chuck's blank stare. "You there, buddy?"

"Yeah," Chuck replied, shaking his head to bring his focus back to the man across from him. "Sorry."

"You've been acting weird for a while," Morgan pointed out, he eyes bright with curiosity. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, fine," Chuck replied, avoiding Morgan's gaze. "Just haven't been sleeping well." It wasn't a lie, per se, since he _hadn't_ been sleeping well, but it wasn't really the truth either.

"Maybe you should ask Ellie for some sleeping pills or something," Morgan offered, his worry about his friend evident on his face. "Is that why you've been working the morning shift?" he asked suddenly, as if a light had turned on in his head.

"Yeah," Chuck admitted. "I figured if I couldn't sleep, I might as well do something productive."

"And you don't have to work with Davidson," Morgan muttered darkly, a grimace on his face.

The pounding on the break room door interrupted the conversation, drawing their attention back to the fact that painful injuries were eminent.

"Hey Morgan," Chuck thought suddenly, "Can you tell Big Mike I'll be back next week? I've got some things I need to do."

"Wait, you're leaving me here with Davidson?!" Morgan was stunned; his wide eyes making him look like a deer caught in the headlights. "You can't do that!"

"Sorry, Morgan, it's something I have to do. I shouldn't be gone more than a week," Chuck assured him, standing up from the table. Grabbing his things from his locker, he clocked out then walked to the corner of the break room where the small kitchenette was located.

"Come on, you can get out this way," he motioned to Morgan, stepping up onto the counter and removing the ceiling panel. Hauling himself up out of the room, he made his way over the receiving area and slid another panel to the side, dropping down into the room and left the building.

He was vaguely aware that Morgan was behind him, but put it out of him mind as he hurried to the car to get away without drawing the attention of either of his handlers. This was something he needed to do alone, without the government following him.

***

_TBC… one more part will do it for this one, I think._


End file.
